The Guttmacher Institute announces three new fellowship programs—the Bixby International Fellowship, the Johns Hopkins-Guttmacher Doctoral Fellowship and the Johns Hopkins-Guttmacher Translational and Policy Fellowship—and welcomes the first fellows in each program.
The Bixby International Fellowship, established through a generous grant from the Fred H. Bixby Foundation, brings one or two scholars or advocates from the developing world to the Institute for up to two months to collaborate with Guttmacher staff on new or ongoing international activities. They will bring to Guttmacher knowledge and expertise that complements the Institute’s work and helps build its capacity in that area. The first Bixby International Fellows are Dr. Fatima Juarez from Mexico, selected as the Bixby Leadership Fellow, and Mr. Felix Limbani from Malawi, who received the Bixby Training Fellowship.
Dr. Juarez is a professor and researcher at the Center for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City. She received her doctorate from the University of London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and, among other positions, has been director of the Health Intervention Policies Project of the United Nations and a senior lecturer at the University of London. She is currently the chair of the International Scientific Committee of the International Union for Scientific Study of Population and has published widely. Dr. Juarez has collaborated with the Institute on a number of projects starting in 2001 and was named Guttmacher senior fellow earlier this year. During her fellowship, Dr. Juarez will conduct research on abortion and trends in adolescent sexual and reproductive health and maternal mortality in Mexico.
Mr. Limbani is program manager at Youth Net and Counseling (Yoneco), a nonprofit organization based in Zomba, Malawi, that is dedicated to advancing the health and rights of youth, women and children. Yoneco, which sponsors a variety of programs, including HIV/AIDS prevention activities, is the Guttmacher Institute’s Malawi communications partner in our multiyear, multicountry Protecting the Next Generation project, which focuses on adolescent knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Mr. Limbani will join the Institute in August and will work with communications staff on international outreach around the project findings.
The Johns Hopkins-Guttmacher Doctoral Fellowship and the Johns Hopkins-Guttmacher Translational and Policy Fellowship were established with funding from donors to the two organizations. The two-year Doctoral Fellowship is designed for doctoral candidates whose dissertation research will enhance and be enhanced by ongoing Guttmacher research. The Translational and Policy Fellowship, which is a three-month appointment, is designed to provide an opportunity for first- or second-year masters or doctoral students to develop skills in translating research into effective policy and program tools. The first Hopkins-Guttmacher Doctoral Fellow is Ms. Kristen Shellenberg and the first Hopkins-Guttmacher Translational and Policy Fellows are Ms. Jenny Truong and Dr. Ozge Tuncalp.
Ms. Shellenberg received her masters of public health degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health and is a third-year doctoral student in Johns Hopkins’ Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. She is currently a member of the Multi-Country Study of Contraception and Abortion Research Team (which includes the Guttmacher Institute), coordinated and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute at The Johns Hopkins University. Her primary research areas include abortion, contraception, adolescent sexual health and reproductive rights. Ms. Shellenberg will join the Institute’s research division in fall 2007 and will study the social consequences of abortion.
Ms. Truong received her masters of health sciences degree in May from Johns Hopkins’ Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, where she studied adolescent reproductive health, particularly in the developing world. She received her undergraduate degree in human biology from Stanford University and has worked in India and Vietnam. Ms. Truong joined the Institute’s public education division in June. She is working with staff to use the findings from the Protecting the Next Generation project to promote more effective use of international resources to help youth in the developing world avoid the negative consequences of sexual activity, including HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancy.
Dr. Tuncalp, a physician from Istanbul, Turkey, completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, and received a diploma in tropical medicine from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. In May, she received her masters of public health degree from Johns Hopkins, where she will continue as doctoral candidate. Dr. Tuncalp joined the Institute’s public policy division in June. She is participating in advocacy and lobbying efforts aimed at strengthening the U.S. reproductive health program overseas, including efforts to mitigate the harm of the “global gag rule”, restore a U.S. contribution to the United Nations Population Fund and oppose the mandate that one-third of all U.S. global HIV/AIDS prevention funds be reserved for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.